‘Sydney first’ urged for infrastructure

The NSW and federal governments need to adopt a “Sydney first" policy for infrastructure spending to attract professional services investment and drive national economic growth, according to a high-powered policy group led by Board of Taxation chairman Chris Jordan.

The Committee for Sydney, whose board includes former Sydney lord mayor
Lucy Turnbull
and Sydney Airport chairman
Max Moore-Wilton
, says in a submission to the NSW government that professional services such as law, accounting and engineering are the state’s “key alternative" to the resources sector.

“NSW’s and indeed Australia’s failure in the last decade to ensure the investment in and support for infrastructure and housing growth that Sydney needs has had an adverse impact on . . . professional and financial services," the submission says.

The NSW government appointed industry taskforces last year to prepare 10-year plans covering a range of sectors.

The professional services taskforce, chaired by Ernst & Young senior tax partner Alf Capito, released a draft plan in July that urged NSW to step up its efforts to attract and retain “key institutions, regional headquarters and regional operations centres" to cement its status as a major professional services hub in the Asia Pacific region.

Mr Jordan, chairman of the Committee for Sydney, said unlocking Sydney’s economic potential would be “an enormous boon for the entire nation and for that reason, the harbour city must take a greater share of federal infrastructure funding".

“It’s time to abandon the ‘everyone gets a prize’ mentality and focus our infrastructure spend to ensure we unlock more wealth," Mr Jordan said. “Making Sydney a more liveable city has to be a key priority."

The committee says in its submission that a well-understood pipeline of infrastructure projects in the state would stop engineering and other professional services firms moving interstate in search of more certainty about future business opportunities.

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It would also help “reduce the costs of infrastructure projects which have been higher than necessary in NSW partly because such an infrastructure pipeline has never been created", the submission says.

The NSW government will shortly release a draft 20-year transport master plan.

It will be followed in September by a state infrastructure strategy prepared by Infrastructure NSW, an independent advisory body chaired by former premier Nick Greiner.

Both plans are expected to provide a guide to the major infrastructure projects across the state over the next two decades. “An explicit infrastructure program in NSW is crucial for attracting and maintaining the best and brightest, particularly in fields such as engineering," Mr Jordan said.

“When we build a motorway or a train line, we need to make clear they are not isolated projects, but are instead part of a longer term infrastructure program.

“Making that pipeline of projects explicit will give both investors and employees the confidence to set up in Sydney."

Mr Jordan said that an “aggressive campaign" to attract skilled migrants was also needed.

Submissions on the draft professional services action plan closed ­yesterday.